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Wine Curmudgeon most popular posts 2012

I’d better read the blog to find out about that Cupcake chardonnay. And how to hold a wine glass.

How much has the blog’s world changed in the past year? From November 2010 to November 2011, the highest-rated white wine review was Cupcake chardonnay, at No. 25, and no white wine review had ever made the top 10 in the blog’s four-year history.

This year, that’s almost completely changed. That same Cupcake review skyrocketed to No. 5, while a 2012 Cupcake review was 34th, even though it didn’t appear until September. A 2011 Two-buck Chuck pinot grigio review, meanwhile, was at No. 9.

And the blog’s usual preference for red wine? That pretty much disappeared. No red wine review made the top 10, while the annual Tormaresco Neprica review fell to No. 69. How the mighty have fallen.

Some things, though, remained the same. You really don’t like reviews for rose and sparkling wine. Rose didn’t show up until No. 42, and it wasn’t a review, but the link to the rose category. And sparkling wine? Not until a 3 1/2-year-old Gruet review at No. 90. Even an expensive wine – the 2004 Stag’s Leap Artemis, which appeared in 2009 – did better than either, at No. 38. On a cheap wine blog, at that. Not to worry, though – I will continue to review rose and sparkling until I make my point.

After the jump, the top 10 posts between November 2011 and November 2012:

1. The 2012 $10 Hall of Fame. The current year’s hall of fame has been the top post every year, though the 2012 hall didn’t outpace the No. 2 post by quite its usual two-to-one margin.

9. The Two-buck Chuck pinot grigio review. I didn’t do a Two-buck Chuck review this year because I wasn’t able to buy any. But Trader Joe’s, which sells the wine, has opened in Dallas, so look for one next year.

10. What we’re drinking in 2012, in which I argued that there are two wine worlds, and that most of us are in the one where we drink cheap wine.